


Choices

by Warpony



Series: Feral Echoes [26]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bazzoxan, Fighting for a Future, Gen, M/M, Making Hard Choices, Military, Sabbatical, Selfless vs Selfish, Slow Burn, Soldier Boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:41:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25596733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Warpony/pseuds/Warpony
Summary: "You would turn your back on all of the Dynasty for this one being?" Quana asked quietly.
Relationships: Verin Thelyss/Original Character(s)
Series: Feral Echoes [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1711534
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	Choices

Verin stood stiffly at parade rest in a waiting room of the Lucid Bastion. He was trying not to fidget or find some place to lean or even sit down. 

He assumed, honestly, this was a bit of punishment of some kind. Making him wait. It wouldn't change anything of course but still it put him a little on edge. 

Verin put away the possibility that it could be anything more than the Bright Queen and Dusk Captain making him wait because he was trying to retire or they were genuinely busy. 

That the long wait might have something to do with Essek and his secrets plots...

Verin hadn't heard any news of its discovery. Essek was nothing if not meticulous. If what he told Verin was true the whole plot was two or three years in the weaving. 

Verin didn't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing that he was so sure that Essek wouldn't be caught. 

The Echo Knight sighed, giving in to a bit of his anxiousness and ruffled his hands through his long hair, tugging his braids a bit as he did so and stepped back to lean against the nearest wall. 

Of course that was the moment the door opened. Verin lurched, pushing himself back up off the wall to stand straight again. 

Dusk Captain Quana Kryn smiled at him just a bit. "I suspect it was unkind to keep you waiting, Taskhand Thelyss."

The Echo Knight straightened up to a more formal posture. "Not at all, Dusk Captain."

Quana smiled just a bit then gave a jerk of her head. "Follow me, Verin. Leylas and I decided it might be best if we all speak in private." 

Verin's brow dipped slightly in concern but he followed faithfully, weaving way through the Lucid Bastion to the Bright Queen's private wing. Verin knew it. He and Brunnera had been there once or twice after the firbolg fighter had foiled the assassination attempt on the Queen. 

Quana pulled open a door and he stepped into a quiet study, comfortable chairs and shelves of a few books. A few trinkets. It was a private space and made all the more so that the Bright Queen was sitting at a desk, writing in a book. 

If Verin was honest she looked like she was in her nightdress. A long shift of pale purple fabric, he hair loose and hanging down around her neck and shoulders in a sheet of silvery white. 

Verin didn't hesitate to dip his head in a deep bow to her as Quana quietly shut the door. 

"Be at ease, Taskhand Thelyss. All is well." She set aside her quill and ink but left the book open to allow the page to dry. "We apologize for the informality but we wanted to speak plainly with you. And for you to speak plainly with us."

Verin took a deep breath before giving a little nod, "Yes, milady." 

"Good. Because are you out of your mind? _Retirement?_ " Quana scoffed already ripping off her armor.

Verin couldn't help the small flinch and looked down towards the floor. The Taskhand sucked a soft breath, letting it out slowly again. For a moment he had to remind himself mentally it was not his mother talking to him, demanding answers or forcing him to abandon his own choices. 

He had to remind himself why he was doing all of this. The chill that had threatened to flood his chest ebbed, replaced by the soft, crackling warmth that always came to him when he thought of Brunnera. The sense of being... whole. 

Home. Safe. 

"Verin." Leylas said quietly, making the Echo Knight blink back to reality to look at her again. "You are just barely out of your first century. You have only been a Tashkand for half of that and proven from report and action that you are vital to the Dynasty in a time so strenuous the possibility of falling back to war terribly real. Why would you wish to retire? Tell us truly?"

"It better be a damn good reason." Quana sighed, stripping off her last bit of armor and dropping heavily into a chair.

Verin was silent for a long moment, drawing a deep breath before letting it out. 

"I have... never wanted something for myself before." Verin said carefully, eyes still cast down. "I have wanted things for my Den. My soldiers and my people. My country. I never thought I'd want for more... need more... now I do. I want something for myself. I need it... and I hoped that I'd could retire and I'd never worry again..."

"Worry?" Leylas prompted quietly.

"That I'd be called away. Sent some place he can't follow or I... I don't come back from..." Verin managed out. 

The Bright Queen and Dusk Captain exhanged a look before focusing on Verin again.

"I wanted to be by his side and have no fear of duty taking me away." Verin kept his eyes down, taking some kind of courage from speaking the truth without looking into the faces of his two highest commanders. "I can't leave him. I won't... Please... if my loyalty and the good I have done for the Dynasty has meant anything do not ask me to choose. I love my people and my country... but he's... he makes me whole... in a way that I never knew I was missing something."

"You would turn your back on all of the Dynasty for this one being?" Quana asked quietly.

"Yes." He said without hesitation but the word clicked so painfully in his throat he nearly choked. Finally looking up, his honey colored eyes pained. "Yes... every time... but it would break me to do so... Please don't ask that of me. Please... he... he makes me be a better person. He's everything I thought I had to beg and prove myself worthy of but given freely. He's more than I ever thought a soul like me could deserve... please don't ask me to choose..."

Leylas and Quana Kryn sat silent, mulling over Verin's worked and looking at one another in silent communication that stemmed from many lifetimes together. 

"Verin Thelyss do you know why we have gone to such lengths to hear you speak honestly?" Quana asked. 

The Echo Knight slowly shook his head. 

"Because I have begun to seriously consider you my successor." The Dusk Captain shifted to prop her chin into her hand. 

Verin stayed silent then working his throat a few times managed to wrench out a shocked reply, "...What?"

"We cannot rule the Dynasty forever. Time... for all our many lifetimes... time will find us eventually. And as it may our souls are very tired... twelve hundred years is a very long time... " Leylas admitted candidly. 

"We have been on the look out for many years now for protégés we might consider our heirs when we have decided enough is enough and wish to rest in the Light in peace." Quana said calmly. "And you, in nearly a century of quietly searching, are the first to ever spike my insterest as a successor to be the next Dusk Captain."

"... I'm a terrible choice." Verin rasped out around his shock. 

"Are you now?" Quana scoffed giving a slight jerk of her head. 

" _Yes_. Have you _met_ my Den? Much less than that I can barely work magic and I'm hardly a politician. Top it all off I have no intention of being consecuted-"

"Pardon?" Leylas said sharply. 

Verin opened his mouth to speak then closed it once before opening it again. "I do not want to be consecuted." 

"That is something very serious to consider, Verin." Leylas' voice had a new hard edge to it that hadn't been there only moments before. "And to declare a choice so openly like that is not to be done lightly. Not even in the private chambers of the Bright Queen." 

"I understand, milady." Verin said quietly. 

"Well. Personally. Nothing you have said excludes you from my consideration for you as the next Dusk Captain." Quana's hands slapped down on her knees as she pushed herself up to her feet. "If I know you, you have already organized your own successor in Bazzoxan. One that will ensure all your policies and regiments you enacted are upheld? Because really, no one has run the place smoother than you have on what little you have been given."

That sent a bitter little lance through Verin's chest. For the majority of his time in Bazzoxan, as a soldier and officer, he and all those there that eeked out a living at the Umbra Gates outpost had scraped out a harsh living. The supplies that had been sent from the Dynasty had never been of great asset and the outpost had had struggled. It had never been even joked about to install a Beacon there much less seriously considered.

When Verin had come to command as the Taskhand he'd struggled, scrambled and lost sleep as he tried to stretch everything as far as it could and beg from the Bazzoxan locals. He poured his own money, blood, sweat and tears into just making sure everyone was fed and outfitted. His pleas to the Dynasty had seemed to go unheard, buried by bureaucracy.

It had taken ten long years for Verin to build enough relationships, fall backs, favored promises fulfilled and redesigns that the Echo Knight could put every scrap of food and bit of broken armor or arms they recieved to use. Reforged, reseeded, whatever needed to keep Bazzoxan alive. He'd done it nearly single handedly in those early days before he'd proven over and over he would choose and care for his soldiers and people over himself and all others. After he proved that he had their loyalty and support and help. The people and soldiers of Bazzoxan took care of themselves and were aloof of strangers that had yet proven their loyalty to the community. The Dynasty could fall and Bazxoxan would stay on its feet and carry on alone because of all Verin had done to help the roots of the city flourish and grow deeper and stronger despite the shortages the Dynasty had sent them. 

The only thing Verin could have done further for Bazzoxan was lobby for the installation of a Luxon Beacon into the city. It had been his long term goal even as the war broke out and Brunnera was shipped to him. His hope that it wasn't a foolhardy dream bolstered by word reaching him of the return of a Beacon by the Mighty Nein.

He still hoped it could happen. There would be no better way to ensure the life and future of Bazzoxan.

But the supply chokehold on the outpost had only lifted when he and Brunnera had been declared champions and war heroes and Verin had been able to speak directly with Quana and Leylas Kryn. 

Bazzoxan would never be shorted again and Verin hoped other outposts that had suffered in silence had been set right as well. He wondered how many of his missives and messages to the Queen and Dusk Captain still lay buried in the paperwork piles of the offices of different Den representatives and organizers in the Lucid Bastion. 

"I did. I have. I know that Bazzoxan can go on without me. All I've done there is meant to see it through many long, terrible years." He conceeded. 

"Few can suggest they have left such a legacy." Quana hummed. "Change is difficult in all environments and you brought it to one of the harshest points on our map. Were you faced with losing someone so influential and powerful to your people and country could you so easily let them go?"

Verin swallowed tightly, his mind racing. His first thoughts were _no_. That he'd find some way to convince and charm them into staying. Anything he could do to keep them. It made his gut sink and turn over. His eyes dropped to the floor again. 

"I cannot and will not keep you prisoner to your station but I cannot so easily release you either. Return to Bazzoxan and put your second into to command, whoever they may be, I trust your judgment to who it is. As of tomorrow consider yourself on a sabbatical until its deemed necessary to call you back to active duty. If we have need of you know we will not hesitate to summon you. You may find yourself with a few assignments to accomplish while at leave as well, consider then favors asked." Quana hummed, getting to her feet and moving to stand in front of Verin. 

He drew himself up, hope and excitement threatening to bubble up and overtake him. It wasn't exactly what he wanted but it was better than being denied. The Echo Knight held himself careful and still. 

"And I ask that during this leave you consider the offer I've put on the table." The Dusk Captain folded her arms over her chest.

"I will... consider it..." Verin said softly, the words feeling heavy and tasting bitter in his mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> So many cogs and so many wheels and things all turning and spinning. 
> 
> Verin really is a genuine patriot, its hard for him to want something for himself. It feels selfish. Taking a deal that lets him have both is easier on him.
> 
> Though the idea of being in partial charge of his home country... 
> 
> Its alot.


End file.
